[The Smiler] Construction Updates / Ride Speculation Part 2 *SPOILER FREE*

[andyramone]

It's pretty clear now that this was no 'teethin' problem. The ride just wasn't ready full stop. And the blame is solely at Merlin/Alton Towers. No unforseen circumstances, just piss poor project management. No one can defend them now.

And the delay has not been dealt with properly. They should estimate how long is left and then add a couple of weeks of soft opening, announce a date that they know 100% they can reach, and sod the whole 'May' opening. That ship has sailed, and the more they manage expectations, the better. A full press statement explaining the issues and apologising would be the bare minimum I would expect in these circumstances. They can't even manage that.

When Liz at the Chained Oak told me on the 16th it wouldn't be open on 23rd from what she had heard, I completely dismissed it. But it's clear back then, people knew it wouldn't open on time. How could they ever imagine it would if they were still building the queue on the day it was meant to open? It's mental

 

[Laura]

If they hadn't announced an opening date I wouldn't feel quite as bad about this.

But it's left a bad taste in my mouth, and it's not caused by 14 inversions.

Seeing it in this half-finished, sorry state is horrible - made worse by the amateur POV videos and 'press' and 'celebrities' wearing hard hats around the area! It's actually making me think of something else but I can't put my finger on it :/

 

[ChocolateStarfish]

Like I said earlier towers knew it was very unlikely to open yesterday but they wanted the bank holiday and half term attendance to be high.
They still don't know when it will open now and although I heard Monday I'm not convinced.

Quite a laughable situation really.

 

[Dylan]

It's pretty clear now that this was no 'teethin' problem. The ride just wasn't ready full stop. And the blame is solely at Merlin/Alton Towers. No unforseen circumstances, just piss poor project management. No one can defend them now.

In their defense (which is odd for me), I suspect there actually is a technical fault / teething problem with the ride hardware which is causing a delay. Had the site have been completely finished and ready, I could excuse this as a genuine issue. But seeing how the site wasn't finished, the ride wouldn't have opened anyway!

On a positive note, if this gives them time to rectify the situation properly and (hopefully) add the remaining trains, when it does finally open, hopefully it will open on full capacity.

 

[Tom]

The ultimate theme park disappointment. Every blunder you've ever imagined all rolled into one fantastically failing project.

To make things worse I think this will have bad reliability once it does open.

-Sent from a mobile phone-

 

[T]

May I point out that I am not too sure they ARE 're-validating tickets', on the basis that I informed a family member whom was on resort yesterday of the debacle, and they had to actively ask about the ticket.

 

[LiamC]

May I point out that I am not too sure they ARE 're-validating tickets', on the basis that I informed a family member whom was on resort yesterday of the debacle, and they had to actively ask about the ticket.

They are re-validating tickets, I was in guest services yesterday and they were doing it for the couple of people in front of me in the queue. They aren't, however, shouting about it and you do have to go into guest services and ask/tell them you want it doing

 

[SubGuru]

Give it two years, teething problems out of the way, it has settled in working fine, and all this will have been forgotten about and people will be happy. Happens every year with their new rides.

It hasn't been a great show for the park, but they obviously tried, and it hasn't worked. We don't know why it hasn't, be it a park problem or a manufac problem, but as a business I am pretty sure that it's something we do not know about (even if there are obvious areas of incompletion visible), but we will probably never know about why it has been delayed so much. They wouldn't have suggested that as an opening date if they truly thought it wouldn't open then - why would they want to create that hassle for themselves as well as it being May half term, it just is not worth it for a theme park of their size or Merlin's reputation! There are obviously problems that we do not know about.

But I assure you that within a year, you will all have those Smiles on your face. Don't you worry, just be patient for the time being, I know you have all waited a long time, but you will just have to wait a little longer! Just remember, Smile. Always. :twirly:

 

[T]

May I point out that I am not too sure they ARE 're-validating tickets', on the basis that I informed a family member whom was on resort yesterday of the debacle, and they had to actively ask about the ticket.

They are re-validating tickets, I was in guest services yesterday and they were doing it for the couple of people in front of me in the queue. They aren't, however, shouting about it and you do have to go into guest services and ask/tell them you want it doing

I think I worded that incorrectly. What I meant was, they aren't informing people of the revalidation, hence having to go get it yourself.

 

[LiamC]

Give it two years, teething problems out of the way, it has settled in working fine, and all this will have been forgotten about and people will be happy. Happens every year with their new rides.

But I assure you that within a year, you will all have those Smiles on your face. Don't you worry, just be patient for the time being, I know you have all waited a long time, but you will just have to wait a little longer! Just remember, Smile. Always. :twirly:

Whilst I understand the point you're making, for a ride that has cost £18 million pounds it should at the very least open on time. It has however been rushed through the design and concept stages, delayed, given an opening date and then delayed again and that just isn't acceptable. When something with such a price tag is built anywhere, regardless of whether it's a new roller coaster or not, it should work perfectly the day it is supposed to open. Two years to "iron out" bugs is nowhere near acceptable in my opinion

 

[oblivion1993]

Guest services have been absolutely amazing with the whole situation to be fair.

I went on Wednesday so I could go on everything without having to queue or deal with the crowds of opening day, with the intention of buying bounce back tickets for Thursday with the sole intention to ride The Smiler.
I got to the resort box office at around 1pm to buy the tickets only to be informed The Smiler wouldn't be opening on Thursday. The lady who was there was really lovely about the whole situation and let us have the anytime return ticket for the price of the next day return ticket. Considering the ride hadn't even opened yet so they didn't ned to do anything, I thought it was incredibly generous of her to give us the discount.

I really feel sorry for what they will have to put up with over the next few days. She said it herself that some staff were so anxious of how the public would react on Thursday that they were seriously considering calling in sick. I really hope people dont direct their anger at them and treat them with respect.

All the staff over the park seemed to be quite unhappy that day. No one had the same enthusiasm as my visit only a month ago. Its sad really.

 

[SubGuru]

Give it two years, teething problems out of the way, it has settled in working fine, and all this will have been forgotten about and people will be happy. Happens every year with their new rides.

But I assure you that within a year, you will all have those Smiles on your face. Don't you worry, just be patient for the time being, I know you have all waited a long time, but you will just have to wait a little longer! Just remember, Smile. Always. :twirly:

Whilst I understand the point you're making, for a ride that has cost £18 million pounds it should at the very least open on time. It has however been rushed through the design and concept stages, delayed, given an opening date and then delayed again and that just isn't acceptable. When something with such a price tag is built anywhere, regardless of whether it's a new roller coaster or not, it should work perfectly the day it is supposed to open. Two years to "iron out" bugs is nowhere near acceptable in my opinion

Thanks for understanding what I was saying

However I dont know how we would know it was rushed through the design and concept stages? Unless you have been involved directly with its conception I think that is quite a drastic assumption. We all know the design and concept for projects of this magnitude are in the pipeline for years - we just didn't know exactly what was happening until a couple of months back.

And I totally agree with you, it SHOULD work perfectly the day it is supposed to open, but we don't live in a perfect world, and every aspect of this planet and world has its issues and things don't go smoothly. So sadly, it just never happens. 2 years was a bit of an exaggeration haha, I was simply implying that in two years time, we will be unhappy about the next thing that has gone wrong and this will be forgotten about I always expect there to be teething problems of a new piece of high tech equipment, I would probably say for at least 6 months to even a year it will have its faults, theyre are complex machines, and as we become more high tech as a population, they will become more high tech, and more complex.

I wish it had opened on time, mainly for Alton/Merlin's reputation and mainly for the sake of the very hardworking staff at Alton, as I dread to think what some of the general public will say to them, and I wish them the best of luck! They do such an incredible job in a general public facing role, and I am sure if anyone has done similar roles you would understand and side with them.

But as I said, there is nothing anyone can do, and Alton won't open it until theyre ready, and I am pretty sure there will be its spout of downtime. Its just impossible for something of that magnitude with so many systems operating at one time to not have downtime and for the engineers and Gerst to learn from their mistakes, correct them, and take what they learnt onto the next thing. Its how the world works.

 

[Rob]

Alton Towers have updated their Smiler FAQ Page so it isn't quite as repetitive and useless as it was before. Still sounds like they don't have a clue when it will actually open but you have to imagine that they are currently aiming for Sunday as they would surely have said it will be closed on Sunday if they 100% knew that.

 

[Danny]

From TowersStreet Facebook:

TowersStreet has been hearing rumours from several sources that today's X-Sector closure is the result of a train stalling on The Smiler, and that the crane has presumably been bought in to move the stranded train around the track.

This just keeps getting better and better.....

 

[gosling]

I find it hard to believe that the powers that be within Alton Towers aren't equally as mortified, if not more so, as the rest of us. Especially if these rumours about trains stalling and the ride generally being broken are actually true.

 

[Tom]

I don't think the ride is ready from an operational point of view, on top of the queues etc not being ready. When we eventually see opening it's pretty obvious it's going to run badly and queues will be astronomical - way beyond what they would have been.

 

[Martin]

That'll be those new trims working just perfectly then.

Why it even needed extra trims I don't know.

 

[Rob]

If it decided (ok I know coasters don't decide to do these things but you know what I mean!) to stall earlier today then that's unfortunate timing to say the least. It has been very windy here in Leicestershire today though, if it's been the same over at Towers then that could have been a factor?

 

[GaryH]

The person who mentioned the Chained Oak - B&B's are a great source for information as usually the builders and engineers stay there. I remember just as Oblivion was starting to be built a B&B owner told me exactly what they were building!

As for the Smiler - doesnt sound good - I agree with other comments that Gerst may be slightly out of their depth here - they havent built a ride this complex before, and i doubt it would have been built, erected and tested on their premises before it was shipped (if indeed that is even possible).

I fear this could be Alton's worst year, visitor numbers are shockingly low, they are having to advertise offers constantly to get people in to the place, the hotels are deadly quiet - worrying times for AT.

 

[Rob]

That'll be those new trims working just perfectly then.

Why it even needed extra trims I don't know.

We don't know if it is the trims or not. If the ride stalled in the first half then trims will have had no effect as there are no trims there (they've not added any magnetic fins). Of course if it was the second half and it stalled in the Cobra Roll then trims could be a factor, if they were being used. If it stalled, it can't be blamed on the trims with no evidence at all!